Translation into and out of local languages

A donor report written in English, a testimony recorded in Kurdish, a legal appeal that has to exist in Arabic. Almost every organisation moves text between languages every week, and machine translation is fast and free, which is why it is the first AI tool most people try.

It is also uneven. Of the organisations surveyed, 57% said AI works only “acceptably” in the languages they work in, and that average hides a gap. Arabic is usually handled well. Kurdish Sorani is not. A tool that turns Arabic into fluent English can turn Sorani into confident nonsense, and it will not tell you which of the two it just did.

Watch out for this

A translation is not a draft you can skim. Names, dates, numbers and the word “not” are exactly what these tools get wrong, and exactly what matters in a legal appeal or a safety warning. Nothing goes out until someone who reads both languages has checked it. Translate the public document in ChatGPT; translate the sensitive one on a tool that runs on your own machine, or not at all.